A city and port on the coast of Nigeria in West Africa, historically important in the ivory and slave trades.
From Portuguese colonial naming, possibly derived from local African language roots. The city became a major European trading post in the 17th-18th centuries, and the name traveled through colonial documentation and trade records.
Calabar gave its name to the deadly 'calabar bean' (Physostigma venenosum), which contains physostigmine and was tragically used in colonial-era 'ordeals' to determine guilt, yet that same compound is now used in modern medicine!
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